


Out of breath, I am left (Natasha)

by Anuna, Koren M (CyberMathWitch)



Series: The Red Thread [6]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Food Play, Introspection, Language, Sex, imagery that involves blood, references to past abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 01:46:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,577
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/681302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anuna/pseuds/Anuna, https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyberMathWitch/pseuds/Koren%20M
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She takes her time washing her face because it grounds her and reminds her where her skin is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of breath, I am left (Natasha)

**Author's Note:**

> hi all, and I am so sorry about the long wait after the previous chapter. The thing is, both I and my lovely co-writer [Koren M](http://archiveofourown.org/users/CyberMathWitch/pseuds/Koren%20M) ran into some creative roadblocks and were otherwise occupied (as, you know, RL tends to happen just when you want to write things), so we weren't able to work on this as quickly as before (or at all at some points). Anyway, here's a chapter we both worked on. This one takes place immediately after [unwrapped](http://archiveofourown.org/works/542577)/[unwrapping](http://archiveofourown.org/works/536759).

She still feels halfway wrapped, unfinished and loose when she wanders into the kitchen. It's different but not bad, the robe around her body is soft and meant to comfort, not to deceive. She watches him as she cuts the bread and makes them dinner.

The sight hits her in the chest, all the familiar lines and shapes, and the fact it's been ten days, ten days and she started to feel the lack of him in her skin, in her gut, in her very bones. He smiles at her, all hard edges softened and desire loosened after what they did just a few hours ago. He looks relaxed and solid, and when she comes to him he offers her a glass of wine. She takes it from his hand and lets him feed her a piece of bread and touch her lips and just watch her, glance at her as he works. 

She is standing next to him, tracing patterns over his arm, drawing litanies along the lines of muscle, and he lets her. He feeds her pieces of food, cheese and tomatoes and ham and bread; and her lips linger around his fingers. She can feel her body hum, every touch makes her warmer and the wine feeds what already is there. 

He smiles at her as he watches her drink the wine, and she wants to keep that smile. She wants to see more of it, she wants to tease him, wants to hear his laugh; but isn't sure how to get there. He is a fortress, solid and secure and she's finding her way through the halls, she's finding new places as she goes and he lets her. Right now she isn't certain of the direction, but when he reaches for her glass she doesn't give it. 

“Uh – huh,” she says and smirks. “Get your own.” 

He smirks in return. “I want yours,” he answers and there's something in his voice that's so promising, warm and dark and tempting. He says he wants her wine, but what he wants is her, just her, and she knows this. It's not a fact to check, it's a knowledge that's there. Looking at him like this, relaxed and teasing and possibly, probably turned on does something to her. She walks to the dining table, that same table from few hours ago, holding the glass in one hand and opening her robe with the other. 

There's nothing underneath, nothing but her skin and his eyes grow dark as he watches what she's doing. “Come and get it then,” she says, leaning against the table and inviting recent memories. 

He comes closer, looking at her like she is both goddess and a prey; a prayer and an answer to it. She offers him the glass but he sets it aside. 

“Now what?” she teases, but her tone is mismatched with things she's feeling rise in her chest at the sight of his face. She gasps when he boosts her up, just like he did before, but now he pushes her robe away and she is naked, completely unwrapped, revealed like a chart.

“I changed my mind,” he says as he lowers himself between her thighs, and he's there again; his mouth on her. He drags his tongue slowly, purposefully, in tight circles and certain lines and spreads her open with his hands. She's trying to hold on, onto the edge of the table and his shoulders and hair, on anything. He's not as gentle this time, he's certain and claiming her, shattering her and taking her apart. There's something about this kind of connection, so frantically intimate, not a single boundary left, because he can feel everything. 

He can feel her every breath and whimper and taste her every reaction. The honesty of it is almost too much, but this is Clint and she tells herself that she is his maze and he is her guardian, and it's safe, because it's him, because he'll catch her, because he'll find her inside if she gets lost. His lips are still on her when he enters her with one finger and when she moans he adds another. Then he's pushing, sending her higher; his hand matching her quickening breaths, and she is so close, so close, so very close -

She shatters in white hot wrecking waves, and she doesn't even hear her own voice. There's nothing but him, only him at the center of her, holding her and touching her and bringing her down with his mouth. She moans when his mouth is gone, when he gets up to drag his tongue along her abdomen and mouth her breast. 

“You're so fucking gorgeous,” he says and kisses her and then she's flat on the table and he's on her, his mouth touching her everywhere. He reaches for something and she doesn't even register what it is until the wine spills over her; her throat, her chest, her stomach, and he's just looking at her. His expression is distant and so darkly hungry, and she remembers, she knows exactly when she's seen it. Something in her chest twists and comes to life, sending more tension through her, coiling between her legs. She's whimpering and her thighs are still shaking when he spreads her legs and he's there, standing over her. The wine is cool and red and it looks like blood, almost like blood. Her chest rises and falls rapidly and heart drums against her ribcage and something inside of her struggles and wants to tear itself free from her chest, because this is how she looks, this is what she is, the blood spilled and raw, untended wounds left to dry. He starts at her navel, licks as the wine spreads everywhere, and she can't look away, how he kisses her, how he touches it all, all the red – red - red, all of her. 

Everything. 

She whimpers again and he soothes her, palm against her face and a thumb spreading her lips, his tongue entering her mouth. He tastes like her and wine and himself as he enters her. She arches against the table, breasts meeting his mouth and body meeting his as he pushes into her. She can see his expression, tight and almost painful and she is barely aware that he's holding back but she is too far gone to know the reason. A string of words comes from his lips, choked and broken, he says fuck and calls her name and tells her to touch herself for him, and she does, she touches her breasts, she reaches between her legs and rubs herself hard with her fingers and then he's shaking, his expression so raw and unguarded and eyes so dark when he tells her to come, now sweetheart, to come for him. 

The way he says it and the sound of his voice is all it takes. 

*

She doesn't sleep, after. She drifts for awhile, first in sensation, then in her own thoughts, but eventually their weight is too much and she slips out of the bed and into the bathroom. She takes her time washing her face because it grounds her and reminds her where her skin is, where she stops and the rest of the world begins. Then she inspects herself in the mirror, almost as if she's looking for damage.

There is none - she's littered with marks, though - the edge of his teeth, the shadow of his fingers, the tender bruise at her throat where he pressed his lips and wouldn't let go. While it's not as visible, she can still feel the ghost of his hands in her hair, his fingers tugging hard enough to make her moan. The spill of hair down her shoulder reminds her of how the wine looked against her stomach and that reminds her of the darkness in his eyes and the thoughts she suspects were kindled there - other memories of another time when it was his blood and not the wine streaked over her skin.

Her breath comes just a little faster as she remembers how that made him come apart in her arms.

She runs her hands over her hips, down her sides, down her thighs, crosses her arms across her chest to run them up her biceps to her shoulders. She lets them rest against her throat, like she's reconnecting with herself, and thinks about how he's the only other person allowed to touch her there. Then further up, she scoops up her hair and piles it in a loose knot on top of her head so she can turn halfway to see the arch of her neck and the curve of her back, relearn her own shape. 

She knows how she looks, knows every inch of her body, because how can she know how to use it to her best advantage if she doesn't know what it looks like? Years of practice, years of mirrors, the same discipline used for learning ballet applied to seduction. Years of sitting, standing, lying, arching - watching herself so she would know what a mark would see, how she would appear to them; learning how to be a master of her shadows.

She doesn't know what she looked like tonight, wasn't present, wasn't thinking, considering, controlled. She came completely apart underneath his hands, his mouth, his body and she doesn't know what that's like from the outside. Her image was gone. 

That's... disconcerting for her.

He moves quietly by habit rather than design, slips into the room behind her and curves himself against her back as he drops a kiss on her shoulder and slips his arms around her waist. He doesn't have a proper tan right now, but his arms are still dark against her pale skin.

"What are you doing?" he asks sleepily, and she feels his mouth moving against her neck. The arch against him is involuntary but this time she sees how that changes her shape, how it makes her breasts rise and her arms tense.

"Looking." She raises her eyes to meet his in the mirror, and it's strangely removed yet intimate. Through the looking glass, she wonders, if I go through where do I end up?

"And what do you see?"

His eyes are sharper now, eyes used to find patterns. Can he see her more clearly than she sees herself? Is that possible? The hands on her stomach are less sleepy comfort and become more seeking and deliberate. He traces her skin and cups her breast in one palm, rubs a slow circle over her nipple and she feels it pull tighter.

She wonders.

"I see... marks," she whispers and makes sure her tone is throaty and soft. It's not that much of a stretch, she doesn't have to pretend to be aroused. It works, too, the hand on her chest tightens and she feels him press hard against the curve of her buttocks. "I see your marks on my body."

Covering his hands with hers, she drags them along all the places she was observing, making small comments and commentary. "The place where you grabbed my hips when you came," she murmurs as he lays his hand against the bruises on her side so that his fingers match up perfectly. "The place you bit down when I came all over your hand."

He makes a sound in the back of his throat, and presses his face against her hair rather than to keep looking at her looking at them. "What are you doing, Tasha?" he asks roughly.

"Turning you on. Is it working?"

When he looks at her this time, there is a dangerous gleam in her eyes, the look meant to taunt him, daring him to react to her, to accept her challenge. She sees him just as clearly, and knows it the moment everything changes.

Without preamble, he shifts his hand down, slides two fingers inside her quickly and easily and she's become her own worst enemy because she's wet and open and she's managed to arouse herself just as much as she has him. The heel of his palm presses on her clit, his fingers curve inside of her, and he bites down in that same spot, still tender from before.

She comes like a train wreck before she even knows it's going to happen, but it's the kind of orgasm that makes the tension worse, not better and when her vision focuses she sees herself breathing hard and holding onto his steadying arm tightly.

"God, I love doing that to you," he whispers darkly and runs his tongue roughly over the bite mark and she clenches down on the fingers still inside her.

This time it's a slower build, he takes his time, but it's still a chaotic jumble of sensations inside of her, and responses that feel like they're outside of her command. Her head drops back against his shoulder and she reaches up blindly to grab the back of his head and slide her fingers through his short, close cropped hair. He takes her up, up, right to the edge and then keeps her there, evading her attempts to find that one bit of sensation more that she needs to get off.

She screams a short, abrupt scream of frustration and need and sees him smile at what he's doing to her.

"Is there something you want?" he asks.

"Yes," she hisses, her hips attempting to follow his hand as he pulls it away from her. "No-"

He's still doing something wicked to her ear with his teeth and tongue but she's empty now, and needs to feel him inside of her again.

"Ask me," he says, and she freezes, eyes snapping to his. "C'mon, baby, I want to hear it. I want to hear you."

She struggles against herself, against jagged edges of thoughts and emotions trying to untie the knot residing in her chest. It doesn't work, not with him almost there, and the desire so heavy and urgent in her mind. His cheek is scratchy, the newly grown beard rasping against her skin as he nuzzles her neck. 

“All you need to do is ask,” he says, his hands stroking her sides. She feels how hard he is, evidence of how much he wants her. It's in his eyes, in his voice, in the way his body rises and curves against her, and God, she just wants him, more than she even wanted any man. “Come on darling. I'll do anything you ask,” his words are soft and his voice is still familiar and she feels like she'll dissolve. 

“Anything?” she asks weakly as his hands move to her front and knead her breasts, and the tension between her legs is driving her insane. The need is so sharp in her mind, so overwhelming, completely out of her control. She aches for release, for touch, for him. She arches, her ass pressing into the cradle of his hips. He groans and his hold on her tightens but his control is still there. 

“Anything, baby,” he says, repeats it, and the promise taunts her enough she has to test it, try how it will feel, so she rubs against him and says, 

“Touch me.”

He drags his mouth along the side of her neck, leaving more marks and stroking with his tongue over them and she thinks she will come apart. “You need to tell me more,” he says and his fingers, powerful and rough on her breasts are promising wonderful things so she closes her eyes and drops her head against his shoulder. 

“Between my legs,” she breathes and whimpers when his hand moves immediately and then he's there but his fingers are still, they don't move. “Please, Clint,” she says and his fingers begin to move, slipping lightly into her, only to retreat and make her want him more. 

“Tell me how you want it, darling,” his voice drips against her hear sweet and sticky, like honey. 

“Inside of me,” she says, “please,” and he complies, fingers entering her easily. She is so wet and tight and aching for release as he works her with his hand and whispers things in her ear; how she's beautiful and amazing and fucking perfect, how he'll give her anything she wants, do anything for her. She looks at the reflection of them, fights herself as her head is dropping against him and her eyes falling shut, but the image of them, both lost in mutual abandon and want is a permanent mark on her mind. “Harder,” she says and he does it, holds her hips and she demands more, now, and he pushes three fingers into her, making her scream. 

She's shuddering now, his hand is just not enough, she wants him to fuck her, raw and hard and fast; wants to see him affected by this just as she is. So she says stop and he does, pulls his hand away only to place it over her breast and then her mouth. 

“That's how wet you are,” he says and she opens her mouth and lets him slip the fingers inside. “You're soaked.” She moans and his hips buck against her, and yes, she is wet, but he is so hard right now, it must be painful. 

“Fuck me,” she demands, her voice so barely recognizable. He pulls at her hips and tilts her up and enters her smoothly. It feels so good she cries out his name, drags it out of her throat with every slow push and pull as she braces her hands against the sink. “Harder,” she demands, feeling his control crack and slip along with her own. He presses his face into her shoulder and picks up the rhythm, panting and groaning along with her hitched breaths. Their voices meld as they strain, pour themselves through the cracks of the other. He moves his left hand to her side, her breast, flicks her nipple and bites down in the soft crook of her neck. They're fucking, mating, shattering each other, and she looks into the mirror, unable to stop. She has to witness this, needs to see how the shape of her changes, how her eyes grow wild and dark when he does these things to her. 

She needs to see and know where she begins and ends in this, only they're so interwoven, linked and tied, bound to one another, and she needs a distinction, needs something so she says, 

“Look at me,” and he does, but she sees it takes effort. He wants to bury his face in her hair, presumably to shut everything out, just like she wants to close her eyes, but she wants have this, as little power as it is. “Look at me,” she pleads and he does, he does just as he promised. “Look at us,” she says and his eyes are on hers, so hard and dark. 

They're caught in this tug of war, but she needs it to end, she has to shatter, so she says “Make me come, Clint,” and it's raw and breathy and she is too far gone to care how her voice sounds.  
He grins against her neck and slows down, breathing “What did yous ay?” against her skin and it makes her shudder, makes her so oversensitive and almost, almost there. 

“Make me come,” she says, and because she can't bear it any more, “Please.” 

“Look at me,” it's him who says it then, demands that she keeps her eyes on his as his fingers work her and he fucks her and his teeth graze her ear and she's gone. She screams, that's how hard it hits her and it's almost painful, only it's just right, just what she needed. Then, when she's done and still shivering he holds her hips tightly and pushes into her rough and fast. She just whimpers, makes pleading sounds to him, surrendering to sensations alone, to how his hands feel on her, how his voice sounds when he starts to shudder and break. 

After they both breath hard and her legs are wobbly, so he picks her up and takes her to bed. There she curls around him, but her mind is adrift. The balance is somehow disrupted, and she has to figure it out. It's not bad, or negative, but it's unsettling in a subtle way and she needs to understand. Clint's chest is shiny with sweat, and it's like a map, learned and traveled and known under her hand. She traces the paths she knows, watches as his muscles move when she reaches the soft spots on his stomach. She knows where he's ticklish and touches him there and he laughs even as his muscles twitch under her fingers. 

“Evil,” he says as he grabs her hand and kisses it. The he turns to her, to look at her, and his eyes are gentle just as the hand on her face. She is tired and her body is spent, and she settles to watch the warm glow in his eyes. 

“Clint,” she says as she's drifting off, feeling her way through confusion and emotions. 

“Yeah,” his voice is heavy with sleep as he brings himself closer to her. 

“You'd do anything?” she asks, and somehow it's important, so big that it sticks in her throat. 

“I'd do anything,” he says and his words bring reassurance, just like they always do. 

She falls asleep next to him.


End file.
